Personal Soundtrack
by leradny
Summary: You might want to shield your eyes from the Rikuness of it all. RikuxKairi... eventually.
1. The Cure: Pictures of You

**Personal Soundtrack**  
_by Raedyn L._

**Notes:** I did it for the money.

...Oh, who am I kidding? I did it for the lack of RikuKairi.

See, my best writing friend CrossoverQueen kindly agreed to do a write-off.

1. Get a friend and pick a fandom. Also, a pairing if you want one. (Mine was Kingdom Hearts: RikuKairi.)

2. Write some themes and throw em in a hat.

3. Pick one out and write for ten minutes nonstop.

4. Read the finished drabble-things out loud.

5. Repeat until you_can't write anymore, for god's sake **have some pity on this poor writer...**_!

This fic is compiled of three writeoffs stretched across a week.

-  
_day I, theme i. The Cure: Pictures of You_

The Cure reaches into his head and pulls everything out so that Riku is startlingly naked no matter what the weather is doing. He would really like to pull a black blindfold over his eyes again, because it is like his security blanket and looking at Kairi listen to the Cure makes him feel itchy and uncomfortable like wearing a wool coat in summer.

Not nice.

The opening intro has her in a thoughtless daze, crumbling around waiting for the lyrics to kick in, and absolutely nothing is like what he'd expected.

"I don't really get it," Kairi says softly. "It makes me feel weird. Sort of like walking in the rain but it's warm and it's boring and soft.. I don't really know what to think about it."

And so Riku is alienated in another method from his friends, on the matter of music: What he likes and doesn't like.

He really likes the Cure and he doesn't know why Kairi shouldn't but one look at her listening to that superlong intro and he's got the jitters again, flowing in time to the music, rambling and shy.

_I've been looking so long at these pictures of you  
That I almost believe that they're real..._

_...Remembering you standing quiet in the rain  
As I ran to your heart to be near...  
_  
The music keeps kicking Riku in the face, he doesn't know why it's still playing in his head even after Kairi gave him the headphones back with a smile and a word to Sora about something else they were doing. The homework (the music), the silence (the music is gone), the...

Everything about this place feels _wrong_.

Namine, cluttering up her drawings with pictures of me and you and someone white in the background, watching us.

Smiling...

Silently..

They aren't even lifelike, these crude representations of the human figure, but after ages and ages in darkness and _those were the last things I saw_ and Riku just explodes when he first sees the Real Kairi because _I thought you were a drawing_.

_are you real are you real are you--_

This isn't real.


	2. Hair

_I.ii. hair_

"Your hair was so soft and silky and luscious and why did you cut it?!"

This random person off the edge of the street is just staring at Riku and wailing--she's a schoolgirl friend from Kairi's circle and Rikku knows that his hair is (was) adored by just about every girl in school but this is ridiculous.

"Hair..."

"Selphie, stop it--you're freaking me out!" Kairi attempts to pacify her other friend with feelings of needlessness and shame.

Despair rages softly in the wind and cools Riku's hair, hiding his face under the curtain of black hat and silver.

"I cut my hair because I wanted to look like a _guy_, okay, and you can't _do_ that with long hair so just--"

"But it was so--"

"Shut it," Riku snaps. "It's over, okay? And nothing you say will ever make it grow back any faster so _please_, Selphie, leave me alone."

He stomps off and _oh no you didn't, boy, Selphie ain't done **yet**_!

"NOW WAIT JUST A SECOND YOU ARROGANT LITTLE--"

"Hey." Squall Leonhart appears out of nowhere and crosses the street. "Trouble in paradise?"

"_We're not even friends_," Riku spits. "She's just giving me crap about my hair because I--"

"Take off that hat and let me see."

"...muh?"

Thin, grey, silvery icy eyes pierce at him through the curtain of hat and hair.

"Off with your hat, kid, or do I have to ask you twice? Let me see."

Kairi whips off the hat, intimidated.

And it is a long, long way from here to home but Riku thinks he can make it in about five seconds because he kind of really doesn't like Squall.

A lot.

He would really rather be somewhere else right now, _not_ being scrutinized by Leon...

"..." Squall smirks. "_Riiiiiiiiiiiiight._"

_...what, is it that bad...?_

"Who cut your hair?"

"She did!" Riku has always been honest with people so he might as well do the same for Leon right here, right now. No problem, right?

Kairi smacks him on the arm because he pointed to her.

"Well, it's a good cut." Squall steps back (finallyfinally those eyes were just... _intense_). "You kind of remind me of me when I was your age. What, sixteen? Seventeen?"

"Seventeen," Riku drawls, no longer terrified. (So maybe Leon isn't so bad...)

"Were you actually aiming for that, or did you just--"

They all start talking at once because Sora was never terrified, he was just _distracted_ and well, Kairi and Riku aren't scared anymore and things go like:

"He was--"

"I wasn't--"

And Selphie jumps in unabashedly. "I cannot believe you--"

"Stop. Talking." Squall grits. "One person at a time, _please_."

And now Riku's terrified again but Kairi goes first.

"I wasn't really aiming for that cut, not really, but he cut his hair first and it was really really bad so I just tried to straighten it out a little and make it more presentable and this is what I came up with. Okay?"

"Yeah," Leon says. "That is a really good haircut. What did it look like before?"

"Long hair," Riku answers. "Like..."

"Rinoa..." the Leonhart says absently, and turns to walk away in the same daydreamy manner. "See you kids later, someday..."

"...Did Leon just call you Rinoa?" Sora asks, mystified.

"It sounds like a girl's name," Kairi offers. Timidly.

Selphie scoffs.

"Manwhore."

-  
**A quick note before you guys review:** If you've read chapter four of How to Wash Dishes Riku-Style, Riku's haircut won't seem so out of the blue. You don't _have_ to read it, but... (hinthintnudgenudgepoke)


	3. Coffee

_I.iii. coffee_

Riku. Feels. **Bored**.

And jittery and excited and stupid all at the same time and wow is that a spaceship and whoever made this coffee is a genius because Riku could just go on drinking it forever and ever and ever--

"Riku...?"

_Wha...?_

"Riku! Wake up!"

Riku slumps forward in the chair and goes, "sorry I'm late guys I just wha...?"

It's dark outside.

_But it's only five-thirty!_ Riku exclaims (in his head), and looks at his watch.

Eight. Twenty. Five.

"WELKMAAW;OEPRIU OH MY GOD!!!!"

He stares at the coffee that's now dripping into his lap and asks, "Why didn't you guys wake me up?"

"We couldn't wake you up, Riku," Kairi says, and everything is going all mushy again (is Kairi _averting her gaze_) and Riku thinks for one more second that _this feels really weird_ before--

CLOMP.

"Zzzz..."

"I think he had too much coffee or something," Sora says calmly. Calmly, but worriedly.

"Sora, coffee keeps you up." Kairi waves a hand in front of Riku's non-responding face and says, "I may have given him a little... _extra_ in his drink. He's not really that nice to people when he hasn't had sleep for two weeks. I was worried about him."

And gradually they wake Riku up and shift their way to Riku's house, because Riku is six foot two at nineteen and he has finally stopped growing but man is it a bitch to drag him home. He's tall (really tall) and dark and handsome and all that and even Sora got a little taller after two more years in high school but _man_.

Coffeee works wonders for your appetite, especially when Riku lives three miles away from the college they're all going to and nobody knows _how_ Sora got in with Kairi and Riku but he did. And now they're stuck with him for the next four years but nobody's really complaining.

Kairi brushes her barely-shoulder length hair out of her eyes and pokes Riku in the shoulder just like she did when they were nine.

"Hey... Riku."

"Zzzzwha? ...huh?"

She throws her arms around him in a glomp. "Morning, sleepyhead!! Did you miss me while you were gone??"

"...Kairi, you're burning me with your sunshine-y goodness. Now get off."

"It was either me or Sora," Kairi points out teasingly. "And you know how word gets around the dorms."

"Kairi, we aren't in the dorms. It's summer break. No... spring break, sorry... agggggh, my head..."

"Still. We live in a pretty small place, you know. Small towns have big scandal walking around in the streets and all that--"

"Zzzzz..."

"...Riku?"

**_--BAM!_**

"Good MORNING, sugar sunshine--is he up yet?"

"No..."

"Zzz..."

"I think I gave him too much of whatever I gave him. He woke up for about two seconds and then he flopped right back down."

"Gah! This is no fun!"

"...Let's give him an afro and pretend it's some mysterious disease that makes his hair all poofy and junk!"

"Whatever. I feel sorry for him."

Kairi pushes the limp, sleeping body off her legs and goes out, shooing Sora away as well.

"Good night, fellow insomniac," she calls sweetly before closing the door behind her.

Riku turns and mutters something like "Kthxbai..."


End file.
